"You can
tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women."
Jawaharlal Nehru

June 18, 2010:
As I've warned for years, Sharia Law is trying to force its way into
the western world.
Thank god one U.S. state is making a strong fight against it.
Oklahoma is proposing a constitutional amendment to "Save Our State"
from what has been deemed the "coming onslaught" of Sharia Law.
"Sharia law coming to the U.S. is a scary concept," state Sen. Anthony
Sykes, a Republican who co-authored one proposal, dubbed the "Save Our
State" amendment, told The Edmond Sun. "Hopefully the passage of this
constitutional amendment will prevent it in Oklahoma."
"It is a cancer upon the survivability of the UK," state Rep. Rex
Duncan, primary author of State Question 755, the ballot initiative,
told The Sun. "SQ 755 will constitute a pre-emptive strike against
Sharia law coming to Oklahoma." Bravo. May it spread to other states.

June 23, 2009:
It seems that revolution is occurring all over the Muslim world. Yay!!!
Appealing to a powerful Saudi prince, an 8-year-old girl asked why she
was not allowed to play sports in school like boys. She got an
unexpected response: The prince said he hoped government schools for
girls would allow playing fields.

The stand taken by Prince
Khaled al-Faisal, governor of the holy city of Mecca and one of the
most senior second-generation members of the royal family, on the
controversial issue is the strongest official endorsement so far of
women's sports and a sign the government may be tilting toward opening
up on that front.

Physical education
classes are banned in state-run girls schools in conservative Saudi
Arabia. Saudi female athletes are not allowed to participate in the
Olympics. Women's games and marathons have been canceled when the
powerful clergy get wind of them. And some clerics even argue that
running and jumping can damage a woman's hymen and ruin her chances of
getting married. (This is the most ridiculous and dumbest
thing I've ever heard!)

Like other restrictions
on women in the kingdom, including the ban on driving and voting, the
prohibitions on sports stem from the strict version of Islam the
kingdom follows. Conservative clerics have strong influence on
government and society, and they ban anything they believe might lead
to women's emancipation or encourage women to abandon conservative
Muslim values.

Despite the obstacles,
there has been some progress in the past couple of years on this issue.
Some Saudi women have quietly been forming soccer, basketball,
volleyball and other teams throughout the kingdom.

Princess Adelah, King
Abdullah's daughter, recently spoke publicly about the need to
"seriously and realistically look into the issue of introducing sports
in girls' schools because of the rise in diseases linked to obesity and
lack of movement," according to Al-Riyadh newspaper. About 52 percent
of Saudi men and 66 percent of women are either obese or overweight,
according to Saudi press reports. (How about engaging in sports
simply because they're enjoyable? Or, a woman might want to make it her
career? Oh,
sorry, for a moment I forgot this is about the Muslim world.)

And on Sunday, the
National Retirement Association, a voluntary group that works under the
umbrella of the Jiddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, opened a
half-mile (one-kilometer) walkway inside a Jiddah mall for female
retirees to encourage them to lead active lives. Dressed in the long
black cloaks women have to wear in public and clutching their handbags,
a few women took part in a "marathon" soon after it opened.

Khaled's remarks, which
he made at the launch of a project Monday aimed at developing cultural
and sporting activities in the western city of Jiddah, gives a boost to
these individual efforts. The prince is interested in sports and has
served as head of the General Presidency for Youth Welfare, the
federation that oversees it.

According to local
newspapers, the 8-year-old girl told Khaled: "I ask myself why is it
that only boys can play sports and have courts while we girls don't
have anything?"

"I hope to see sports
courts for girls inside girls' schools," the prince responded,
according to Al-Hayat newspaper.

He said if this were to
happen, it will be in coordination with the Education Ministry and
"according to certain mechanisms that take into consideration women's
privacy in this country."

His remarks came amid an
intense debate over the issue in Saudi newspapers. The government
allows such debates because the views expressed by the readers,
columnists and clerics help it to gauge people's opinions over
controversial issues.

A statement issued by
three senior clerics last month lashed out at Saudis who demand the
opening of more gyms for women, saying such a move would "open the
doors wide for spreading decadence."

"It is well-known that
only women with no shame will go to these clubs," said the statement
signed by clerics Abdul-Rahman al-Barrack, Abdul-Aziz al-Rajihi and
Abdullah bin Jibrin.
(WHAAAATTT???!!! Obviously, you live in a different universe! And what
does any of this
have to do with shame?)

In a recent column in
Al-Watan newspaper, Sheik Abdullah al-Mani, an adviser at the royal
court, said virgins should think twice before engaging in sports.

"Soccer or basketball
require running and jumping and these could damage (a woman's) the
hymen," he wrote. "If she marries, her husband will ... think that her
hymen was destroyed as a result of an (immoral) action." (What if a man
hurts his penis in sports? What then?
A penis is an exterior genital and is ofen injured. Does it hurt his
chances for marriage?
Women and girls can do everything and the hymen does not get damaged or
destroyed from sports or arts!
How about the men get their focus off of their need to fuck a virgin
and value women for being
more than just a sex/procreation object and slave?)

"He will either divorce
her or lose confidence in her chastity," he added. (Why is it
always about what the men want?)

"I'd like to ask the
sheikh, "If in his opinion the hymen is the reason why girls should not
engage in sports, what about married women? What's to stop them?" she
wrote. (TOUCHE! Excellent.)
[Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,528541,00.html]

June 22, 2009:
MOGADISHU, Somalia — A court run by an extremist Islamic group
sentenced four Somali men on Monday to each have a hand and a leg cut
off for allegedly stealing mobile phones and guns. The ruling prompted
an outcry from human rights activists. The court that handed down the
sentence in Somalia's capital is run by al-Shabab, one of the nation's
most powerful insurgent groups. The U.S. considers al-Shabab a
terrorist group with links to Al Qaeda, which al-Shabab denies. The
group, which controls much of Somalia, is trying to drive out the
government and install a strict form of Islam. "We have convicted them
of theft, so they deserve to have their arms and legs amputated," said
Sheik Abdul Haq, the al-Shabab judge in the capital, Mogadishu. Sure,
because there's no other
kind of punishment you can give a minor thief, right? This is more
evidence
that extremist Muslims do not value life, nor do they have any
compassion. Such cruel people. Fruthermore, the trial was unfair (what
else is new?).

I support Iran's uprising
against its dictatorship, politically and religiously,
and appreciate that finally women's voices are being heard. Women are
standing up
to these evil tyrants and men are supporting the women. They cry about
Neda's death,
but where was all that support all the years when women were
suppressed, oppressed, punished just for being female? Maybe it had to
come to this to wake up and
value life and freedom. Power to them.

Saudi Arabia has pledged
to take steps toward removing rules requiring a woman to have a male
guardian at all times, saying there is no such legal requirement, a
rights organisation said. Saudi rights officials committed in a review
with the UN Human Rights Council to take steps to end the male
guardianship rule, to give women full legal identity and to ban
discrimination by gender, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement
from Geneva today.

HRW said that during the
review Saudi officials said the Islamic sharia law concept of male
guardianship does not exist in Saudi law.

"Islam guarantees a
woman's right to conduct her affairs and enjoy her legal capacity," the
Saudi officials said, according to HRW.

In Saudi Arabia much of
life is governed by the strict Wahhabi branch of Islam and law is
heavily based on sharia, or Islamic law.

Women are required to
have male guardians to move in public, travel abroad, get married or
even access many public services. They are also prevented from driving,
making the country the only one in the world with such a restriction.

Many women, especially in
the commercial sector, have been trying to have such rules changed, but
face tough resistance from hardline clerics who have powerful influence
over the legal system.

HRW said the Saudi
officials also pledged to end the practice of executing people for
crimes committed as juveniles, noting that Saudi Arabia is one of only
five countries in the world that allow it.

The Saudis "should now
work to carry out these reforms rapidly," HRW said. We'll see....
actions speak louder than words.

September 10, 2008:
Great news: The Saudi Human Rights Commission (SHRC) has launched a
campaign to set a minimum age for marriage in the kingdom. The SHRC
began its campaign following several high profile trials, where young
girls, sometimes less than 10 years old, were married off to men above
the age of 50 and even 70. "This is a violation of human rights, and a
clear breach of international conventions that Saudi Arabia has signed
onto," SHRC chairman Turki A-Sudeiri told the London-based daily
al-Arab. "Child marriages should be considered the same as forced
marriages, since valid consent has not been obtained from the bride,
who is also under-aged," Sudeiri said, adding that this could lead to
"severe health complications, since the girl is not psychologically,
physically and sexually mature to enter wedlock." The minimum age for
girls to marry is suggested to be 17 years old, and 18 for boys. That's
a good start.

However, there is another
issue directly linked to weddings and bridges of any age, the money one
pays for a bride. Many old men temporarily marry young girls and
divorce them soon afterwards. This is like paying for the services of a
prostitute or child abuse. Take away the girl's virginity against her
free will because they paid the parents for her, and then dump her.
This practice must end. Women and children are not property to be
bought and sold and abused. They should be free to decide for
themselves who they marry, or even if they marry, and with whom they
have sex. Saudi Arabia needs to address the purchasing of human slaves
or this age minimum issue for marriage is only half resolved.

May 27, 2008:
The brutal "honor killing" of a 16-year-old Afghan immigrant by her
brother has sparked a renewed debate in Germany over whether Islamic
families can adapt to the social ways of the Western world.
The girl, Morsal Obeidi, was ambushed in the parking lot of a Hamburg
McDonald's restaurant by her 23-year-old brother Ahmad, who stabbed the
girl 20 times, Spiegel Online reported. Hamburg is home to more than
20,000 Afghan immigrants, the most of any European city, the Web site
reported.
Morsal Obeidi had long struggled with a tug-of-war between her desire
to live like her friends in Germany, and her family’s desire to
preserve their Afghan lifestyle, the site reported.
Obeidi's arguments with her brother and father, over things like her
appearance, smoking and drinking, often turned physical. She reportedly
sought the protection of a child and youth welfare agency to escape the
violence on more than one occasion.
Ahmed reportedly told police that he killed his sister because she had
become too comfortable with Western life with her uncovered hair,
makeup and short skirts.
Click
here to read the complete Spiegel story of Morsal Obeidi's tragic death.

May 11. 2007:
AHMADABAD, India: A man was arrested and charged for allegedly burying
alive his 6-day-old twin daughters near his home in western India The
baby girls later died, police said Friday.
Samantsinh Sodha wanted a son but his wife gave birth to baby girls
last week in Nakhtrana. Indian society has long favored boys, who do
not require the enormous dowry payments that bankrupt many poor
families when their daughters marry. Sodha, a gas station attendant,
took the twins away while his wife was sleeping and buried them in a
pit Wednesday night, Malik told The Associated Press. Police arrested
him on Thursday, the police officer said. Many expectant couples in
India will abort a fetus if they find it is a girl. International
groups say the widespread practice of aborting female fetuses has
killed more than 10 million female fetuses in the last two decades,
leading to an imbalance in the ratio between males and females in
India.

April 15, 2007:
Oh my - such a sin to HUG somebody! Pakistan's tourism minister says
she fears for her life after clerics at a radical mosque issued an
edict accusing her of sinning by hugging her French parachute jumping
instructor, the state news agency reported.
Minister of Tourism Nilofar Bakhtiar told a parliamentary committee of
her fear on Saturday following the Taliban - style edict against her by
Islamic clerics at Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, in Islamabad, the
Associated Press of Pakistan reported.
The clerics said the hug was "an illegitimate and forbidden act" and
"without any doubt, she has committed a great sin."
Two clerics at the mosque issued the edict against Bakhtiar last
Sunday, demanding that she be sacked, her family punish her and she be
made to ask for forgiveness after pictures in the Pakistani media
showed Bakhtiar hugging her parachute jumping instructor at a
fundraising jump in France.
Hundreds of students from an Islamic seminary attached to the mosque
have been running an anti-vice campaign in Islamabad, threatening music
shops and brothels, in a bold challenge to President Gen. Pervez
Musharraf, a U.S. ally who has pledged to promote moderate Islam.

February 19, 2007 - the
insanity continues:
Condolences to the family of Zilla Huma Usman. The minister for social
welfare in Punjab province and an ally of President Pervez Musharraf
was killed as she was about to deliver a speech to dozens of party
activists, by a “fanatic”, who believed that she was dressed
inappropriately and that women should not be involved in politics,
officials said. Usman, 35, was wearing the shalwar kameez worn by many
professional women in Pakistan, but did not cover her head. As Usman,
35, stepped out of her car – where she was greeted by her co-workers
throwing rose petals - the attacker pulled out a pistol and fired a
single shot at close range, hitting her in the head. She was airlifted
to hospital in the provincial capital Lahore, but died soon afterwards.

The gunman, Mohammad
Sarwar , was overpowered by the minister’s driver and arrested by
police. A stone mason in his mid 40s, he is not thought to belong to
any radical group but is known for his fanaticism. He was previously
held in 2002 in connection with the killing and mutilation of four
prostitutes, but was never convicted due to lack of evidence. Sarwar
appeared relaxed and calm when he told a television channel that he had
carried out God’s order to kill women who sinned. “I have no regrets. I
just obeyed Allah’s commandment,” he said, adding that Islam did not
allow women to hold positions of leadership. “I will kill all those
women who do not follow the right path, if I am freed again,” he said.
“He is basically a fanatic,” Raja Basharat, the Punjab Law Minister,
said. “He is against the involvement of women in politics and
government affairs.” A police statement added: “He considers it
contrary to the teachings of Allah for a woman to become a minister or
a ruler. That’s why he committed this action.”

“He killed her because
she was not observing the Islamic code of dress. She was also
campaigning for emancipation of women,” said Nazir Ahmad, a local
officer. Usman, a married mother of two sons, joined the pro-Musharraf
Pakistan Muslim League after being elected in 2002. A strong supporter
of the President’s policy of “enlightened moderation” - designed to
tackle extremism - she was appointed to her current post in December
last year according to her government biography.

In April 2005, she
encouraged the holding of a mini-marathon involving female competitors
in Gujranwala – an event which led to riots after police intervened to
stop armed Islamic activists from disrupting the race. She also ran a
small fashion business from her base in the town.

Shaukat Aziz, the Prime
Minister, paid tribute to the minister, describing her as a “committed
and dedicated politician”. “During her short span as minister, she took
several steps for the welfare of the people of Punjab,” he said.
Zobaida Jalal, the federal Minister for Social Welfare, added that
Usman’s death was an “unbearable loss to the cause of women rights and
their empowerment”. General Musharraf, whose support for the US-led war
on terror has caused consternation among Pakistan's hardline elements,
has promised to address women’s rights as part of his more moderate
agenda. But analysts said that the murder of the female minister
highlighted the failure of his government in curbing Islamic extremism.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in a recent report said that
violence against women had increased alarmingly, with some of the
incidents incited by Mullahs opposed to women’s emancipation.

Islamists also campaigned
against the Women Protection Bill which was recently passed by
parliament, which seeks to provide protection to women who have
suffered discrimination under Islamic Sharia laws. Women make up just
over 20 per cent of the lower house of parliament, according to the
country’s main human rights group, and there are three women ministers
in the cabinet of the federal government. But widespread discrimination
against females continues to be a problem in what remains a
male-dominated society, particularly in the countryside, where most
Pakistanis live.

January 16, 2007
A 19-year-old was shot to death by unknown assailants on Tuesday at her
home in the Jawarish [Muslim] neighborhood of Ramle, Israel, in what
police estimate was an "honor killing." According to police sources,
the teen was not involved in a "forbidden" relationship, but was
considered a rebel in her behavior and choice of apparel. Police forces
that arrived on the scene were not surprised to learn the teen's
identity, as she had been threatened by her family members for a long
time. About a year ago, the victim returned to her family's home after
residing in a women's shelter for an extended period of time due to a
fear for her life. When she turned 18, she left the shelter and
returned to her parents' home, in spite of the threats for her life,
even though police had informed her of the threats. The teen insisted
on staying with her parents and even signed a police statement saying
she was aware of the angers. Ramle police commander Chief
Superintendent Yoram Yifrah said, "This is a terrible murder. We
condemn it, and we will do everything possible to find the assailants."
Last year, eight women were murdered for what is termed "honor
killings." Can't trust your own family: what a lovely Islamic message
to pass on to your children, children you might end up murdering
anyway.

August 16, 2006
SAN DIEGO, Calif. -- A woman who said she has been ordained as a Roman
Catholic priest led a service during the weekend -- despite the risk of
being excommunicated. Jane Via, 58, is among 15 American women who have
recently gone through ordination ceremonies that are not sanctioned by
the Roman Catholic Church, which bars women from becoming priests or
deacons. According to the group, a male priest presided over the first
ordination of seven women in 2002 in Austria. The women were
excommunicated by the Vatican in 2003. Via said such consequences were
"unwelcome," but also, in a sense, liberating. "I will accept the
consequences," she told NBC San Diego. "They're unwelcome, but they're
apparently necessary." "If women like me don't stand up and do
something for women in the church, no one else is going to," Via told
NBC San Diego. "We've been waiting for the Vatican to do this for 40
years, since the second Vatican council. Not only has nothing happened,
but things have gotten progressively worse for women since." The U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops has not taken a formal position on the
issue, but three of the American women who say they are ordained
priests received letters from diocese officials warning that they had
chosen to excommunicate themselves. "The church needs women," Via said.
"The church needs women's voices."

March 11, 2006:
The good news - This past year has yielded several new female
presidents around the world. The first female president of Libera,
first
female president of an African country, a new president of Chile,
Norway, Governor General of Canada, and Chancellor of Germany. Here is
a list of current
female world leaders.

December 25, 2005:
MULTAN, Pakistan — A father, angry that his eldest daughter had married
against his wishes, slit her throat as she slept and then killed three
of his other daughters in a remote village in eastern Pakistan, police
said Saturday.
Nazir Ahmad, a laborer in his 40s, feared the younger girls, aged 4, 8,
and 12, would follow in their sister's footsteps, police officer
Shahzad Gul said.
Ahmad surrendered to police after the killings late Friday in Burewala,
about 70 miles east of Multan . a main city in eastern Punjab province,
Gul said.
"He [Ahmad] told us today that he has killed his daughters, and we
arrested him," he said.
Gul said the man's 25-year-old daughter, Muqadas Bibi, had married the
man of her choice against her father's wishes some weeks ago. Ahmad
contacted Bibi this week, saying he was ready to forgive her, Gul said.
During a visit by Bibi to her parents' house, Ahmad slit her throat as
she slept and then killed the other three girls, Gul said. He said
police were investigating whether other relatives helped in the
killings and were also looking for Bibi's husband.
Gul said police are looking for Bibi's husband to inform him of her
death.
Hundreds of women are killed in Pakistan every year, many by male
relatives, after they are accused of staining their families' honor by
having affairs or marrying for love without family consent.
On a personal note - how about Nazir Ahmad and other men who commit
these acts have their penises cut off while they're wide awake,
and then have their throats slit? Would that be a fair sentence for
what they do to their women?

October 6, 2005:
KABUL, Afghanistan: A 27-year-old woman critic of Afghanistan's
powerful warlords has won one of the first seats declared in
provisional results from landmark parliamentary elections, a key step
in the central Asian nation's transition to democracy.
The U.N.-Afghan election body on Thursday reported "serious" cases of
fraud, including the stuffing of ballots into boxes after polling day.
It excluded 299 polling stations from the vote count but declared the
September 18 poll was still credible.
It declared unofficial winners for national and provincial assembly
seats in two of the country's 34 provinces, Farah and Nimroz, and said
most other results would be released in the coming week.
Final, certified results are expected by late October after what
officials predict will be a frenetic complaints period.
"I'm very happy and thankful for Afghan men and women who voted for
me," said Malalai Joya, 27, a women's rights worker from Farah, who
polled second in the race for the province's five seats in the 249-seat
Wolesi Jirga, or National Assembly.
"My first priority when I go to parliament will be peace, security and
stability, and to collect all the guns from warlords," she told The
Associated Press. Hope she will live long and be able to achieve her
goals.

June 22, 2005:
Nature is trying to tell you something - stop doing this
to girls and women! ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - A 12-year-old girl who was
abducted and beaten by men trying to force her into a marriage was
found being guarded by three lions who apparently had chased off her
captors, a policeman said Tuesday. The girl, missing for a week, had
been taken by seven men who wanted to force her to marry one of them,
said Sgt. Wondimu Wedajo, speaking by telephone from the provincial
capital of Bita Genet, about 350 miles southwest of Addis Ababa. She
was beaten repeatedly before she was found June 9 by police and
relatives on the outskirts of Bita Genet, Wondimu said. She had been
guarded by the lions for about half a day, he said. "They stood guard
until we found her and then they just left her like a gift and went
back into the forest," Wondimu said, "If the lions had not come to her
rescue, then it could have been much worse. Often these young girls are
raped and severely beaten to force them to accept the marriage," he
said.

Tilahun Kassa, a local
government official who corroborated Wondimu's version of the events,
said one of the men had wanted to marry the girl against her wishes.
"Everyone thinks this is some kind of miracle, because normally the
lions would attack people," Wondimu said.
Stuart Williams, a wildlife expert with the rural development ministry,
said the girl may have survived because she was crying from the trauma
of her attack. "A young girl whimpering could be mistaken for the
mewing sound from a lion cub, which in turn could explain why they
didn't eat her," Williams said. Ethiopia's lions, famous for their
large black manes, are the country's national symbol and adorn statues
and the local currency. Despite a recent crackdown, Hunters also kill
the animals for their skins, which can fetch $1,000. Williams estimates
that only 1,000 Ethiopian lions remain in the wild. The girl, the
youngest of four siblings, was "shocked and terrified" after her
abduction and had to be treated for the cuts from her beatings, Wondimu
said. He said police had caught four of the abductors and three were
still at large. Kidnapping young girls has long been part of the
marriage custom in Ethiopia. The United Nations estimates that more
than 70 percent of marriages in Ethiopia are by abduction, practiced in
rural areas where most of the country's 71 million people live.

July 19, 2004:
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Arab militias in Sudan are gang-raping and abducting
girls as young as eight and women as old as 80, systematically killing,
torturing, or using them as sex slaves, an Amnesty International report
said on Monday. Militias known as Janjaweed, which rights groups say
are backed by the government, have been fighting rebels in Sudan's
western Darfur region since last year, triggering one of the world's
worst humanitarian crises. "When we tried to escape they shot more
children," one woman identified only as A. told Amnesty researchers.

"They raped women, I saw
many cases of Janjaweed raping women and girls. They are happy when
they rape. They sing when they rape and they tell us that we are just
slaves and that they can do with us how they wish." As many as 30,000
people have been killed in Darfur and more than a million displaced,
their homes bombed by government planes, their crops stolen. In a
report called "Rape as a Weapon of War," Amnesty outlines sexual
violence against women it says is happening on a massive scale. It says
Khartoum is actively violating its legal obligations to protect
civilians. "Soldiers of the Sudan government army are present during
attacks by the Janjaweed and when rapes are committed, but the Sudan
government has done nothing so far to stop them," Amnesty researcher
Benedicte Goderiaux told a news conference. Darfur's rebels accuse the
government of arming the Arab Janjaweed to loot and burn African
villages in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Khartoum denies the charge.
The Sudan embassy in Beirut said in a statement that the Amnesty report
was aimed at defaming the government, distorting Arab culture and
driving a wedge between Sudan's ethnic groups.

Sexual slavery
The Amnesty report, launched in Beirut and Nairobi, details gang rapes,
public rapes, killings of those who resist rape, abductions for sexual
slavery, and cases where women and girls have had their legs broken to
stop them running away. It is based on hundreds of testimonies
collected from refugees in camps in Chad. Although the sample of
victims was limited, Amnesty said it pointed to widespread abuse. The
London-based group said rebels fighting the Janjaweed may also have
raped civilians, but facts were limited. One woman was five months
pregnant when the Janjaweed abducted her and eight others during an
attack in July. "After six days some of the girls were released. But
the others, as young as eight years old, were kept there," she said.
"Five to six men would rape us in rounds, one after the other for hours
during six days every night. My husband could not forgive me after
this, he disowned me."

Efforts to end the crisis
through negotiations are in tatters after rebels stormed out of peace
talks last week. They said they would only meet government delegates
when Khartoum fulfilled promises including disarming the Janjaweed.
Amnesty called for an end to the conflict, better protection of
civilians, Janjaweed disarmament, trials for those carrying out the
attacks and an international commission of inquiry to examine war
crimes in Darfur. A separate conflict in Sudan between the government
and southern rebels has killed around two million people in the past
two decades. Peace negotiations have brought it close to an end.

In another report today:
Evoking the lesson of the Holocaust, Yad Vashem on Sunday urged the
international community to take immediate action to stop the mass
murder going on in Sudan. The rare public warning issued by Israel's
Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority calls on the world
to "act before it is too late" and stop the slaughter going on in
Sudan's western Darfur region, which "includes aspects of ethnic
cleansing and perhaps even genocide."

"Yad Vashem urges world
leaders to take immediate concerted action to halt the tragedy in
Darfur before it devolves further, to provide effective humanitarian
aid to the region and to punish the perpetrators of the heinous crimes
that are being committed there," a press release issued Sunday read.
Tens of thousands of black Africans have died in more than a year of
violence that has turned into a systematic slaughter carried out by
Arab militiamen in Darfur, a vast and remote region in western Sudan
the size of Iraq.

The United Nations
estimates up to 30,000 people have been killed in the violence,
although some analysts say that the death toll is in fact much higher.
The fighting, which broke out 15 months ago, has forced over one
million to flee their homes, while more than 2 million people are in
desperate need of food and medicine. The violence erupted when two
groups drawn from Darfur's African tribes took up arms over what they
regard as unjust treatment by the government in their long-simmering
struggle over land and resources with Arab countrymen.

The Arab militias then
began attacking the black Africans. The deadly African violence comes
as the world marked 10 years since the 1994 Rwandan genocide where at
least 500,000 and as many as 1,000,000 people were murdered in 100
days. "It is imperative that we learn the lesson from past failures to
respond in time to evolving, genocidal evil," Yad Vashem said. "The red
line for world response has to be much before a Holocaust or genocide,
said the director of Yad Vashem's library, Dr. Robert Rozett.

June 6, 2004:
Gautam Singh, Associated Press Writer, writes, "She's blind and
disfigured. Her college friends don't visit anymore, and children are
terrified of her. On rare trips out of the house, she hides behind a
cotton scarf. Her anger still burns. Five years ago, Haseena Hussein's
former boss flung acid onto her, angry that the woman he'd become
infatuated with resisted coming back to work for him. In July, that man
may walk free from jail in this southern Indian city, a place
best-known for its software engineers and high-tech millionaires. "I
want the worst for him," said Hussein, 25, who has lost count of the
skin grafts she has had on her face and body. Her family has spent
$15,555 on her care, and donations dried up long ago. In early May, a
court sentenced Hussein's attacker, Joseph Rodrigues, 32, to five years
and three months in jail and ordered him to pay her compensation of
$6,666. Because Rodrigues has already spent more than five years in
jail while awaiting trial, he could be released in July. Prosecutors
are appealing the sentence. "I only wanted that he should be punished
severely. I have to suffer this lifelong," said Hussein, who once
dreamed of being a fashion designer but now spends most of her day
applying creams to her scarred face and body. She sits on the porch of
her parents' apartment, keeping her back to the road to spare passersby
a glimpse of her badly burned face. Hussein is far from alone.
Thousands of Indian women are thought to have been burned in acid
attacks, some by spurned lovers, others by relatives who believe that
the women have somehow tarnished the family honor. Although there are
no precise figures on the number of victims, women's groups contend
that cases are on the rise. The Campaign and Struggle Against Acid
Attacks on Women has documented more than 30 cases in the last five
years in Karnataka state, of which Bangalore is the capital. Women's
groups want faster trials for the accused, stiffer sentences, tough
laws restricting sales of acid and compensation for victims. In most
cases now, attackers are charged with attempted murder, which carries a
prison term of not more than 10 years. Police said Rodrigues threw acid
on Hussein outside her office on April 20, 1999. He owned a software
firm where she had worked until the company closed. When it reopened,
she already had another job. Rodrigues told Hussein that he loved her,
police said, and tried to persuade her to rejoin his company. When she
refused, he attacked her, police charged. Rodrigues denied throwing the
acid. Hussein remembers the excruciating pain, the burning. Then there
were the rounds of plastic surgery and skin grafts. In an attempt to
restore sight to her right eye, she recently underwent a cornea
transplant. Doctors won't know for a few months whether any vision has
been restored. No matter what, her anger won't go away. "Even if I
die," Hussein said, "I'll never forgive him.""

April 19, 2004:
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- A popular Saudi television host publicly
showed her bruised and bloodied face and has shocked her compatriots
into openly talking about one of the kingdom's long-hidden problems:
violence against women.
Rania al-Baz has been hailed as a hero for letting newspaper
photographers snap pictures of her face and for frankly discussing her
case after she said a beating by her husband earlier this month left
her unconscious. Her story has been widely reported in the Saudi media.
A Saudi princess stepped forward to pay al-Baz's medical bills.
Representatives of the new Saudi National Human Rights Association
visited her in the hospital.
Al-Baz told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Sunday that
once she is back at work, she will press a violence-against-women
awareness campaign. "I know many women in Saudi Arabia are badly beaten
and when I recover I will do a program addressing that," she said.
She said she also will try to tackle other topics, like rape, that are
usually not publicly discussed in conservative Saudi Arabia.
Al-Baz is well know throughout the kingdom for her chatty, magazine
style show, "The Kingdom This Morning." The program usually offers
lighter fare and is shown on state-run Saudi Channel One.

Al-Baz made the
photographs of her wrecked face after the April 10 beating all the more
startling. Al-Baz suffered 13 facial fractures required 12 operations.
"Though the photo was too gory for some people -- blood was dripping
from her face -- she wanted her case to be publicized so that other
battered women would be encouraged to speak up," columnist Raid Qusti
wrote in the Arab News. Qusti said that all Saudi women should salute
al-Baz. "She knew the story was going public, and she did not do that
for publicity, she did it to help other women -- because no man has the
right to beat a woman," said Arab News' editor, Khaled al-Maeena.
Al-Baz, in her 30s, said her husband of six years, singer Mohammed Bakr
al-Fallatta, had beaten her before. But she said the April 10 attack
was especially vicious, and that she thought he wanted to kill her.
After banging her head on the floor and the wall until she lost
consciousness, al-Baz said her husband drove her to the hospital and
left her at the front doors, claiming she was a victim of a traffic
accident and that he was going to pick up others who had been hurt.
He then drove off and has not been seen or heard from since.

Al-Baz said she is not
sure what triggered the attack. But al-Fallatta had been out of work
for nearly three years and was depressed, she said. And days before the
beating, he got angry when he found her watching a Lebanese TV show
that featured his sister, a singer who lives in Beirut. Police say when
they find al-Fallatta, he will likely face charges of abuse and
attempted murder.
For her part, al-Baz has expressed concern about her husband, saying
she hoped he would be arrested before he harms himself. But she also
told the AP she will ask for a divorce and custody of their three
children, one of whom, she said, witnessed the beating.
Although Islam prohibits violence against women, many believe spousal
abuse is common in the almost entirely Muslim Saudi Arabia.
There are no statistics available on wife abuse in the kingdom, but
husbands rarely meet disapproval for "reforming" spouses deemed
"disobedient" by hitting them. According to the U.S. State Department,
"hospital workers report that many women are admitted for treatment of
injuries that apparently result from spousal violence." Nahed Bashatah,
a Saudi who has written extensively about abuse of women, said al-Baz's
celebrity has given her case prominence, but "there are hundreds of
other abused women who nobody hears about."
Bashatah pointed out that Saudi women need to be accompanied by a male
guardian even if they want to go to the police to report abuse.
Saudi law requires a woman to be accompanied by a male guardian -- her
husband, or, for unmarried women, her father, brother or son -- on
almost any public chore. Saudi women also are not allowed to drive.
Still, Bashatah said Saudi courts have judged in favor of abused women
before.

September 25, 2003
Victory for Amina! May she and her baby have a long, safe, and healthy
life. The Shariah Court of Appeal ruled on Thursday (interestingly
near the eve of the Jewish New Year) that Amina Lawal's conviction was
invalid because she was already pregnant when harsh Islamic Shariah law
was implemented in her home province. The 31-year-old, who was in court
with her baby, Wassila, has been appealing the death sentence for two
years. "It is the view of this court that the judgment of the Upper
Shariah Court, Funtua, was very wrong and the appeal of Amina Lawal is
hereby discharged and acquitted," judge Ibrahim Maiangwa said. Shariah
law, based on the teachings in the Quran, Islam's holy book, is
practiced in 12 of Nigeria's 36 states. Any way you look at this,
there was NO justification for stoning this woman to death!

August 14, 2003
NAIROBI, Kenya: Dozens of Kenyan women carrying children they say are
the sons and daughters of British soldiers who raped them protested
outside the British mission in Nairobi. Holding posters reading "All
the colonialists should go!" 60 women from the nomadic Masaai and
Samburu tribes delivered a petition to the high commissioner on
Thursday, calling for a public investigation and money to provide
schooling for their children. The children born to these women have
lighter skin and hair and some are blonds. 650 women from the rural
north, where the British army has exercised for three decades, have
said they have been raped by soldiers while herding, fetching water or
collecting firewood. The women say their children are treated worse in
their communities because of their mixed blood. The British government
says it's taking this very seriously and will get to the truth of it
and prosecute anyone responsible for such acts.

July 4, 2003
Dismemberments worry El Salvadorans.
There have been a half-dozen instances since November in which body
parts, mainly female, have turned up in El Salvador. Several suspects,
all reputed gang members, have been taken into custody on suspicion of
having participated in the killings. In Guatemala, the figures are even
more chilling; 158 women were killed there in the first three months of
2003, and recently more women have turned up dead and dismembered. On
Thursday, a nonprofit Guatemalan group, the Network to Oppose Violence
Against Women, called on authorities to bring an end to the killings,
noting they had become increasingly gruesome.

June 15, 2003
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- An Egyptian woman married to a man with six
daughters from previous marriages drowned herself Saturday just hours
after giving birth to a girl because she feared her husband's reaction
to fathering another daughter. The woman, only 27 years old, left her
home in Saff, south of Cairo, and drowned herself in an irrigation
canal three hours after giving birth to her second daughter, police
officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Before
his wife gave birth, her husband had threatened to kill or divorce her
if the couple had any more daughters. Society in rural Egypt is largely
conservative, and many parents often prefer having sons to daughters
for cultural and economical reasons. Divorce is also considered a taboo
in such areas. Many women would rather their husband take a second wife
than be divorced. The husband, 38, had been married three times before.
In each case, he divorced his wives after they gave birth to girls.
Seems to
me the problem is the man (the father determines the child's gender,
not the mother), his attitude, and the backwards idea that girls aren't
as valuable as boys! It's their child, no matter what gender it is -
how can they not love what they created? Pity the daughters who are
left with him.

April 29, 2003
Los Angeles - Women employees of Wal-Mart were taken to strip clubs on
business trips, demeaned as "little Janie Qs" by senior managers, paid
less than men for the same jobs, and denied promotions, plaintiffs in a
lawsuit against the world's largest retailer claimed. The allegations,
denied by a Wal-Mart spokesman, are contained in 110 declarations by a
group of women suing the company for gender discrimination in federal
court in San Francisco. They were submitted as part of a petition by
the women to gain class status and represent all women who have worked
for Wal-Mart since Dec. 26, 1998. If that request is granted by a
judge, lawyers for the plaintiffs say, the lawsuit would become the
largest employment discrimination case ever brought. To win it they
must prove that discrimination at Wal-Mart is companywide.

April 10, 2003
KABUL, Afghanistan - Kabul University now has 17 Afghans graduates who
trained to earn industry standard
certificates in computer networking skills - 6 of those are women.
Afghan women, under the Taliban,
were forbidden to have education, or to be allowed outside of their
homes (especially without being
completely covered up). Afghanistan is trying to catch up with other
parts of the world in technology.
The women in the program are very optimistic and want to help their
country and other women learn
about computers and the Internet. Graduate, Rita Dorani, aged 23,
echoed her thoughts. "My message for all Afghan women is to try as much
as possible to learn about computers, because it is essential for every
man and woman to be aware of this global technology. Men should allow
women to learn this technology."
There are still areas outside of the major cities that need to come
into the current century with education
and women's rights, and little by little they will be transformed.

October 9, 2002
Palestinian poll: A husband may beat his wife if she hurts his manhood
By Itamar Marcus
Introduction:
A poll conducted in the Palestinian Authority by a Palestinian public
opinion company shows that a majority of Palestinians are of the
opinion that a husband may prevent his wife from working, that a woman
should strive to devote herself to her husband and that a husband is
entitled to beat his wife if he thinks that she "hurt his manhood".
Nearly half the Palestinians believe that neither law enforcement nor
social welfare agencies' intervention in husbands' violence towards the
wife is warranted, while at the same time a the majority calls for
tough punitive legislation for violence towards women. These two
attitudes are, it seems, not viewed as contradictory. One possible
explanation is that the support for punitive measures expressed by a
majority of Palestinians does not apply to a husband's violence towards
his wife.

The text:
“The Society for the Advancement of the Palestinian Working Woman, in
conjunction with The Palestinian Center for Public Opinion Polls,
conducted a poll under the supervision of Dr. Nabil Kokali, on the
topic of violence against women..."
“56.9% of Palestinians feel that it is a husband’s right to hit his
wife if he thinks she hurt his manhood...”
“59.1% of Palestinians feel that it is a husband’s right to prevent his
wife from working outside the home..."
“66.4% of Palestinians declare that the crown of success of the
Palestinian Woman is devoting herself to the care of her children and
her husband above devotion to herself…"
“47.1% feel that there is no need for intervention of social or law
enforcement agencies in instances of husbands attacking wives, because
that is a family problem..."
“73.9% feel that a woman must think of how to become a mother and wife
rather than engage in her economic and social freedom..."
"86% of Palestinians feel that the [Islamic] traditions and customs
retard advancement of women..."
“68.5% of Palestinians feel that the [Palestinian] Authority should
legislate firm punitive legislation for violence against women...."
[Al-Ayyam women’s supplement ‘The Woman’s Voice’, October 3, 2002]

The rest of this archive
begins here and continues to August 19, 2002.

Sudenese women woke up on
Tuesday, September 5, 2000, to find that their freedoms were removed.
Police on Tuesday began enforcing a decree issued by Khartoum's
governor that ordered women in the capital to stop working in gas
stations, hotels, restaurants and other public places where they are in
direct contact with men. Governor Majzoub Khalifa said his decree,
issued late Sunday, was in line with Islamic sharia law. "This is to
honor women, uphold their lofty status and put them in the
appropriate place that respects the values and observes the tradition
of our nation," he said. Ironically, he added that these women
shouldn't be harmed (as if controlling where they can work, how they
support their families, and that he removed their free will isn't
harmful), but they should be employed elsewhere! Needless to say, but
I'll say it anyway, the Sudenese women were shocked and angered. This
came AFTER a UN official encouraged the government to sign a 20 year
treaty to promote equal opportunity for women. Talk about insane.

In Algiers, Algeria,
twenty-five people, including a family of twelve, were killed in the
past three days during a surge of violence in Algeria, where an Islamic
insurgency continues to claim new lives on an almost daily basis, news
reports said on Oct. 21. The latest casualties are 50 people killed in
the North African country in the past week, newspapers reported.
Fourteen civilians, two police officers and nine Islamic militants were
among those killed since Wednesday. A group of 20 armed militants
attacked the family of 12 late Thursday night at their home near Chlef,
200 kilometers (125 miles) west of Algiers. The daily Liberte reported
that five young children, between 4 and 12, were among the dead. Nine
Islamic militants died in three separate gun battles in southern and
eastern Algeria, which took place Thursday in Khemis el-Khechna and in
Tebessa, and on Friday morning near Mestah, 40 kilometers (25 miles)
east of the capital, Algiers, the dailies, El Watan and La Tribune
reported.

November 3, 2000
Batman, Turkey: Aysegul (a 17 year old) threatened to shoot herself
with her father's shotgun unless
her father agreed that she could marry the man she loved. Speaking with
radio DJ Mustafa Seven, Aysegul said
that she would rather die than marry her cousin, as her father was
demanding. The DJ went to her house and
talked her out of committing suicide. Fortunately, he was able to get
the girl's parents to change
their minds.

In the past year more
than 100 women attempted suicide (28 succeeded) in this town alone. And
the
suicide rate has risen more than 50 percent since 1993. Compared to the
West, where most suicides
are by men, 80% of suicides are by women in Turkey, with 75% of those
being between the ages of
17-25. Associated Press reports that "girls as young as 13 are
sometimes married to sexagenarians against their will and many girls
are not allowed out of the house by their fathers or husbands." Some
suicide
victims were women who had rumors spread that they were no longer
virgins or women who gave
up their virginity to men they hoped to marry in order to escape their
poverty. War has also
contributed to the growing number of suicides. And the increase of
television has shown these young women that there are lifestyles
elsewhere where they could fit in and not suffer in silence. In China
(where there are almost 500 suicides A DAY - AP), Afghanistan and Iran
the rate is equally high - especially true in countries where cultures
are traditional and repressive against women.

There is some good news,
however. The government has instituted a hotline for women, a female
counselor, is spreading leaflets around saying that "killing God's
masterpiece" is a sin and getting out
a message that Islam forbids discrimination against women. But, it is
not easy in a place where most
fathers hardly care what their own daughter's names are. The government
is also setting up programs
to help teach women traditional crafts which they think will help them
out of their depression. Still,
programs are rare and not available to everyone, as yet.

November 15, 2000
The news in America regarding women is that on the average, women earn
78 cents (up four cents in the
past couple of years) for each dollar a man makes, which has gone up
from 60 cents twenty years ago. (The actual amount varies from state to
state, with a wide range between some of them.) In government, 12
percent of the U.S. Senate, 5 governors, and about 22 percent of state
legislators are women. Poverty remains high among women - 50 percent
higher than men's. Single mothers are still the hardest hit.

December 2, 2000
Kuwait's highest court says that next month they will rule on whether
women shall have the
right to vote, run for office, or remain excluded from their own
country's political business -
which has been in effect since 1962. Parliament is the only power who
is against
giving women equal political rights. Women in Kuwait can travel on
their own, work, drive,
go to school and hold senior positions in the government and at
universities. I'm sending
my positive vibes to the women of Kuwait and hope they obtain their
right to vote and
run for office.

January 9, 2001 Update:
Please see full report at this
site
Yesterday, Afghanistan's Taliban rulers imposed the death penalty for
anyone who converts from Islam to another religion. Any non-Muslim
found trying to win converts will also be killed, leader Omar said on
Taliban-run Radio Shariat. He also accused followers of other faiths -
particularly Christians and Jews - of trying to convert Muslims and
seeking to demonize the harsh brand of Islam practiced by the Taliban.
These lies are geared for only one thing - for control through hatred
and fear while using their own version of Islam and God as their
justification for their terrorist acts.

As already mentioned on
this page, Afghan women are barred from working, and the Taliban has
stopped all schooling for girls beyond age 8. Men are required to wear
beards and must pray regularly in mosques, while women must be covered,
head-to-toe. The only form of entertainment left, if you can call it
that, are religious songs. Omar also announced a five-year jail term
for bookstore owners found selling material critical of Islam and
describing other religions.

January 18, 2001
Iran's Guardian Council, the conservative constitutional watchdog, has
rejected a parliamentary bill to allow single women to study abroad on
state scholarships. It also would have allowed unmarried women to
travel abroad without their parents' permission. If parliament persists
in its support for the measure, it will go before the Expediency
Council for final arbitration.

February 27, 2001:
According to reports from the Associated Press, over 1,000 people
watched as two women convicted of prostitution were hanged Friday in
southern Kandahar, the headquarters of Afghanistan's hard-line Islamic
Taliban rulers. The women, also convicted of "corrupting society," were
hanged in the sports stadium, their faces hidden behind that
all-encompassing burka. Two other women were publicly lashed for
adultery. One was sentenced to 10 years in prison, the other to two
years. Ten men convicted of adultery also were lashed and sentenced to
prison terms. The Taliban, who rule about 95 percent of Afghanistan,
have imposed a harsh brand of Islamic law, enforced with public
punishment. Murder, adultery and blasphemy can carry the death penalty,
and the limbs of thieves are amputated.

March 2, 2001:
The Taliban are in the process of destroying two 2,000 year old statues
of the Buddha carved into a rock face near the central town of Bamiyan.
The Taliban's reason for doing this is because these statues are
considered insulting to Islam, they are false gods. Since a secret deal
was struck between the Taliban and the Afghan legislature, (and if
total support for the Taliban isn't shown it can mean death) no one can
speak out against this destruction.

May 29, 2001:
A 34-year-old woman (and a mother of two teenage boys) in southeast
China's Fujian province was beaten to death by birth-control officials
who wanted to sterilize her against her will, her relatives said on
Saturday. Her family wanted to report the manner in which Sun was
taken, but there was no one to whom they could report it. Sun Zhonghua
was forceably taken to have this procedure, even though she had medical
documents showing that the procedure was not advisable because of a
medical condition. Officials lied to her family, saying Sun died from a
suicidal jump off a building. Family members who were allowed to see
her body discovered large bruises to her head and different parts of
her body. "There is no way she could have received those injuries from
jumping to her death," said the relative. She had gone to the hospital
every year since 1992 to make sure she was not pregnant, they said.
China's controversial "one child" policy continues to result in serious
human rights violations 20 years after it became law. The present
policy is being enforced in ways that many human rights groups say are
equally unjust. Pressure on China's army of family planning workers to
meet the birth quota in their jurisdiction have led to widespread
excesses. Family planning workers and local officials resort to beating
people, locking them up illegally, confiscating livestock and
destroying their homes. Despite the harsh measures, births are still
growing at an annual rate of 10 million and the government has vowed to
continue the policy to cap the population at 1.6 billion by the year
2050. China's population now stands at nearly 1.3 billion, the largest
in the world.

June 5, 2001:
If you think slavery is over, you're wrong. Please read the latest news
about slaver in the Sudan, India, and other places, from the American Anti-Slavery Group's web
site at http://www.iabolish.com

July 25, 2001:
An amazing life, yet demonstrative of the abuse women face in India,
and what some women feel they must do in order to fight back, or be
powerful. India's former "Bandit Queen" turned politician, Phoolan
Devi, who held the post of MP for the district of Mirzapur in Uttar
Pradesh, was shot dead by masked gunmen outside her home in New Delhi.
Her story was the subject of numerous films and books, but first came
to international prominence in the 1994 movie "Bandit Queen," directed
by Shekhar Kapur. Devi was born into a poor family from the low-caste
Mallah community. She was forced into marriage at age 11 to a man more
than 20 years her senior. She ran away from her abusive husband and was
kidnapped several years later by lower-caste bandits who roamed the
lawless Chambal Ravines in India's central Hindu heartland. Two bandits
shot dead Devi's gang leader lover and took her to their village where
she was confined in a shack and allegedly gang raped by local men. She
escaped three weeks later only to return on Valentine's Day, 1981, as
the head of her own gang, whom she allegedly told to kill 22 high-caste
Hindu men in revenge for her rape. After two years on the run, during
which she developed a reputation as a latter day female Robin Hood,
Devi surrendered to police in 1983 at a ceremony attended by thousands
of villagers. She was jailed for the following 11 years until 1994
without ever going to trial, and has always denied she ever personally
killed anyone. Devi returned to the spotlight two years later when she
successfully contested the parliamentary seat of Mirzapur, a low-caste
dominated constituency, in the 1996 elections. She was defeated in
polls two years later but made a triumphal return to parliament in
1999. The Times of India said members of the Indian lower house, known
as the Lok Sabha, stood for a minute's silence after hearing the news
before adjourning business for the day as a mark of respect.

August 19, 2001:
Phoolan Devi's estate is now in question as her mother and sisters
fight her two abusive ex-husbands (who claim all of Devi's property is
theirs) in court.
Read the details here.

As evidenced by the
averted bombing attack at Tel Aviv's central bus station
last Friday, Palestinian women are now getting more and more involved
in
terrorism, even volunteering as suicide bombers.

A report published on
Sunday in the London SUNDAY TIMES claims that scores
of Palestinian women have responded to a fatwa (religious decree)
issued by
the High Islamic Council in Saudi Arabia last week, urging them to
become
suicide bombers.

Crowds of angry Muslim
women are a mainstay at mass funerals for Palestinian
"martyrs," and the TIMES quoted some as recently shouting, "Make a bomb
of
me, please!"

The latest such female
terrorist was a young mother of two from Nablus who
was caught trying to sneak a powerful bomb into the Tel Aviv bus
station
Friday afternoon. According to Israeli security sources, many more
Palestinian women are expected to attempt such attacks in the coming
weeks.

There are several notable
instances of Arab female terrorists, the most
notorious being Dalal Maghrebi, who was part of the terror squad that
hijacked an Israeli bus and ended up killing 37 people in what is known
as
the 1978 coastal road massacre.

August 8, 2001:
From the Times:
Shazia Mirza, 25, is a Muslim woman (and science teacher) from Pakistan
determined to succeed as a stand-up comedian that she that she is
prepared to risk physical attacks and the threat of a fatwa against
her. This first female Muslim stand-up is appearing at the Edinburgh
Festival Fringe with a sketch about being a Muslim woman in a Western
culture. She was attacked by three Asian men during a recent
performance in a London club. One of them punched her in the face while
the others screamed abuse. She said, "They said I was a disgrace to my
religion and a disgrace to my culture, that being a woman you have no
right."

The night she was
attacked, she didn't perform for two weeks, but she realized that it's
important for her to carry on for Muslim women and people who live
their lives in oppression. Her critics misunderstand her motives, she
said, "I'm celebrating Islam. I'm not against it. Islam gives women a
lot of power, but the culture takes that away and says women are not
allowed to do this and that. We're brought up not to speak out in
public. But it doesn't say that in Islam. Men condemn me for doing
that." She has been winning prizes for her comedy in London and
Scotland.

Sept. 11, 2001:
What more can be said but it is spreading. Learn WHY this happened and
prevent it from happening again.

Here's a little something
I received through email:

What can you do about
Osama bin Laden?

The problem is, what do you do with him once he's found?

Kill him -- he becomes a martyr...

Don't kill him -- he's a hero to the extremists ....

Solution:
Capture him alive, convict him for his crimes, sentence him to his
punishment.

What punishment, you ask?

Why, a full blown sex change of course!

Then, send him back to Afghanistan to live out the rest of his life as
a woman under the Taliban regime.

All these items signal
our need to intensify our focus on what kind of a world we choose to
have.
This is a reflection of diseased societies which are in poverty (in
more ways than just financial), lacking love and honesty, and we must
treat these actions as very serious crimes against humanity, women and
our divinity. Let your voices be heard to stop these vile crimes.
Educate your children to love and respect both men and women, the male
and female within yourselves (you need both to be balanced), and ALL
life. Be responsible for life on this beautiful Mother Earth. Without
women all of us wouldn't be here, and if this violence, laws that are
created or removed to remove our free will, and lack of respect keeps
up, there will be no future.

If you are moved to
assist in bringing peace, freedom, equal rights, safety and support
to women and all people in the world, what can you do to help? Here is
a page with
some suggestions and links.

Letter to Leaders:
Please insist that Afghan women leaders be included in the rebuilding
of a democratic government and that restoring women's full human and
democratic rights be a top priority in this process.

The U.S. must ensure that these women leaders, many living in exile or
still under virtual house arrest, are a part of creating a
''broad-based'' government in Afghanistan.

Prior to the Taliban's 1996 takeover of the country, Afghan women were
70 percent of the schoolteachers, 40 percent of the doctors, 50 percent
of civilian government workers and 50 percent of the college students
in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. They were scientists, professors,
members of parliament and university professors. They led corporations
and non-profit organizations and local communities.
Clearly, there are many women well-equipped to participate in leading
Afghanistan back to full democracy.

Further, the U.S. must also insist that women's human and democratic
rights be protected against the warlords -- many who also have horrid
records on human rights -- fighting for post-Taliban control. Afghan
women leaders must be sought out and empowered to participate in
rebuilding Afghanistan.

Please make sure that a new Afghan government will include women's
voices and that all repression of the country's women and girls be
eliminated.

When certain cities were
liberated from the Taliban, some women joyfully threw
off their burkas, and some even put on make-up. Even though they have
no bread,
no homes, nothing, they are happy because the Taliban is gone. Other
women are
fearful that the Taliban aren't completely gone, and keep their burkas
on because
no one has given them the order to remove the buraks. That's how sad it
is - some
women can no longer think for themselves due to oppression. Men and
boys, who
saw women who had removed their burkas, remarked that they hadn't seen
a woman in six years.

November 17, 2001:
First Lady Laura Bush made history by delivering the president's weekly
radio address in its entirety. Mrs. Bush focused on the Taliban's
treatment of women,
reiterating exactly what has been said thus-far on this Page. She adds,
"The plight of women and children in Afghanistan is a matter of
deliberate human cruelty, carried out by those who seek to intimidate
and control. Afghan women know, through hard experiences, what the rest
of the world is discovering: The brutal oppression of women is a
central goal of the terrorists." But it is indicative of an even
greater threat, Bush said -- that the Taliban's treatment of women and
children is a clear picture of "the world the terrorists would like to
impose on the rest of us."

The State Department
launched the second volley, releasing a nine-page report it on what it
called "The Taliban's War Against Women," calling the group's policies
"particularly appalling" in "its systematic repression of all sectors
of the population...The Taliban has prohibited schooling for girls over
the age of 8, shut down the women's university, and forced women to
quit their jobs," the report said. "It has restricted access to medical
care for women, brutally enforced a restrictive dress code, and limited
the ability of women to move about freely."

Before the Taliban took
control of the country in 1996, the report says, 70 percent of
Afghanistan's teachers and 40 percent of its doctors were women. The
Taliban's repression of women, it says, "has stripped a society in
desperate need of trained professionals of half its assets."

Saying the Taliban
treatment of women is not in line with treatment of women in many other
Islamic nations, the report advocates a role for women in a
post-Taliban Afghan government.

"Afghan women should have
the right to choose their role in that future," the report says. Amen
to that!

December 22, 2001:
Today Hamid Karzai became the interim leader for the new government of
Afghanistan.
In his new cabinet, determined to remove the Taliban, are two women.
(Karzai's wife is a doctor.) Rebuilding Afghanistan begins. With my
prayers, and I hope yours,
the role of women will radically change for the better in Afghanistan,
and pave the
way even more for women in other nations, who are severly repressed and
abused,
to improve their status and living conditions...for a better lifestyle
everywhere.

“We respect Afghan women
who are half of our country's population, and we give the rights to
them under the country's law,” Karzai said to warm applause from the
overwhelmingly male audience.
Two women, including one as health minister, will serve on Karzai's
29-member cabinet...it's a start.
Hardly representing HALF of the country's population as half of the
cabinet, but it sure is better than nothing and what it's been under
the Taliban.

I hope this page will
soon come down, the horrors becoming obsolete, because we will have
restored balance to our planet of the male and female, and are
achieving peace, allowing freedom, education, and health to blossom.

January 22, 2002:
The horrible conditions of life in the Congo is coming out into the
open. Malaria, polio, whooping cough,
TB, bubonic plague, AIDS, are growing. Hundreds of women have been
raped - in front of their children
and their husbands. The people are starving, and also killing them are
endless wars and
nature (volcano). The women are begging us for help. They do not want
to hide what has happened
to them. They want everyone to know so they can receive help. Between
37%-75% have no access to
any kind of health care. But you can help.

International Rescue
Committee was founded at the request of Albert Einstein to assist
opponents of Hitler. The IRC helps people fleeing racial, religious and
ethnic persecution, as well as those uprooted by war and violence. To
donate by mail to the IRC, send your contribution to:IRC
P.O. Box 98152
Washington, D.C. 20090-8152

World Food Program
Established in 1963, the World Food Program is the United Nations'
frontline agency in the fight against global hunger. In 2000, WFP fed
83 million people in 83 countries, including most of the world's
refugees and internally displaced people. To donate by mail to WFP,
send your contribution to:U.S. Friends of the WFP
P.O. Box 11856
Washington, D.C. 20008

January 27, 2002:
Yesterday on Arab TV Arafat ordered his people to march into
Jerusalem as suicide bombers and destroy Israel! Arafat told the
Palestinian
crowd they were "facing a military crisis, but despite all this, no one
has
complained of the suffering. They have said, 'Allah is great, and
jihad,
jihad, jihad'," and "To Jerusalem we will march - millions of martyrs.
And, O Allah, Master of
the Universe, please let me be one of the martyrs." Arafat's words in
Arabic were broadcast across the Middle East by "Al-Jazeera," the
pan-Arab satellite television station, which showed Arafat
wagging his finger as he led the crowd in chants of "jihad, jihad,
jihad,"
and "until victory, until victory, until victory." Pure incitement to
murder...and
a cause for celebration. What happened almost immeditely afterwards was
a female
suicide bomber went into Jerusalem, blew herself up, killed an elderly
man and injured many
Israelis. So now both men and women are also being brainwashed and used
as martrys.
Their pictures plastered on the walls as heroes, encouraging their
youth to follow suit.
After all, their families will receive money and praises, parties will
be thrown, they
will go down in history as being great for blowing up themselves, and
others.
Arafat said in a speech addressed to the world "terrorism is a symptom,
not a disease" - meaning - he defends terrorism as a means of curing
the disease. Do you agree?
Commiting suicide is against Islam.

The Muslim world may well
have a long line of women ready to blow themselves up.
It is very possible that these women are blackmailed. Whether true or
not, men
can say these women had sex with someone, won't marry who they're
supposed to,
did something they consider taboo, and then tell the women that they
can blow themselves
up and restore their family's honor by killing Jews. Then their
families will be compensated,
to boot. I wouldn't put it past them to pull such a heinous thing. They
don't think a woman's
life is worth much anyway, right?

March 8, 2002 -
International Women's Day:
Today Afghan women celebrated their freedom and a new day. Some were
without burkas,
they read verses from the Koran. Laura Bush made a radio address today,
as well affirming our dedication to protecting women's rights in
Afghanistan
and around the world, and we must continue to do so to ensure a
peaceful
and stable world.

April 1, 2002:
More hypocrisy: Lebanese cleric today okayed the use of female suicide
bombers, and added,
"This is a new glorious history for Arab and Muslim women." How much
sicker
can a society get than this? I'm sure, in time, these guys will show us
how much sicker
it can get. This is perhaps the greatest abuse of women to date -
VALIDATED and SUPPORTED
by Islam and politics, WITH THE INTENT TO MAIM AND KILL. As always,
instead of valuing, elevating,
and loving life, they are demeaning and dismissing it as being useless
- thereby torturing all
through the act of suicide bombing. If this isn't a crime against
humanity, I don't know what is.
And what will the dear U.N. say? Probably not a thing. There must be
unity within the Arab and
Muslim world to wipe out the entire concept of a suicide bomber. It
works pretty well in Jordan
where if anyone becomes a suicide bomber their entire family will be
executed. That's a mighty
strong deterrent.

April 3, 2002:
Saddam Hussein believes (guess he knows his people) that everyone has
their price. He's offering $25,000 to Palestinian families who will
have their kids be suicide bombers against Jews. Wonder what your own
children, or
any children you know, would think about that? Is their life worth
that? Would they think anyone who makes them
commit suicide cares about them or loves them, that their lives
are so worthless that all they're good for - not their future and
welfare - is for their families to profit from their deaths? Is this
the only kind of "equality" that can be
accepted for women in Arab and Muslim nations? Download or just watch
this slide show
showing the true face of terror. Be sure to wait until each screen
is finished
and then click "enter" to go to the next one.
Email me and I will send you a [warning - graphic] film of a
Palestinian child's education.

April 9, 2002:
The Queen Mum is laid to rest. Whether or not you support a monarchy,
one thing is
for certain: Brits sure do know how to adore, honor, respect, and
celebrate women - and
kind, powerful women, at that.

April 12, 2002:
A Palestinian woman who planned to carry out a suicide bomb attack
inside Israel - by hiding the bomb while disguising herself as a
pregnant woman. In the West Bank, a 14-year-old Palestinian girl who
entered Na'aleh armed with a knife was arrested and handed over to
security forces for questioning. The girl said she had entered the
community to kill Jews, as she wanted to be a martyr. The girl had a
piece of paper in her pocket stating her intentions to carry out an
attack. [Jerusalem Post] Later on, a Palestinian woman
succeeded in blowing up people in Jerusalem, just as Colin Powell was
leaving to
survey northern Israel. One of the women (a mother) who attempted to be
a suicide bomber, but
was caught by The IDF was interviewed. She said that she feels being a
suicide bomber
and murdering Jews is a holy mission. When asked how she would feel if
her daughter
grew up to be a suicide bomber/terrorist and she said that it would be
up to God, but it
would be fine with her.

April 17, 2002:
The insanity gets more intense: Six members of the European Union
joined 44 other countries on Tuesday in endorsing a United Nations
document that condones violence as a way to achieve Palestinian
statehood. The U.N. condemned Israel
for defending itself, but DID NOT condemn homicide bombings. So,
prepare for more from men and women willing to blow up themselves and
others in order to get what they want. And prepare for it to come to
your town....endorsed by the good old U.N. As for me,
I will boycott products from each and every country who supported that
resolution.

May 9, 2002:
Radio interviews with young girls in Afghanistan is very optimistic.
The girls I heard
speaking were thrilled to be able to be back in school, and happy to
not have to learn in secret and hide from the Taliban. They have goals
for their future: for example, some want to be doctors, some want to be
television journalists, and they feel that they can be whatever they
want to be now. They are joyful and thankful for this positive change.

A victory: For the first
time women in Bahrain voted today. "As a loyal citizen I've been
waiting for this opportunity all my life," 80 year-old Maryam Mohammed
Yousuf said. "This is a new birth for the nation, this is very, very,
very, good." There was even a female candidate, Badriya Ali. "This is
the first light and we hope that it leads us to a brighter future,"
said Hassan Mushaima, a former dissident who voted. "It was a great
experience and we are eagerly looking forward to the parliamentary
elections." Former dissident and Shiite leader Mansoor al-Jamri after
voting Thursday said, "This is the starting point for democracy."

May 30, 2002:
Two female Palestinian wannabe suicide murderers changed their minds
and decided
not to be used as martyrs in that way. Underlying her original decision
to blow herself
and Israelis up were the teachings which preach the need for jihad to
"create a just and equal, non-corrupt and non-criminal society by the
spread and unification of Islam." Thauriya Hamamreh's (25 years old)
instructions unleashed a series of doubts, primarily over the
"righteousness" of the operation and whether her prime motivation,
which was of a personal nature rather than a pure religious belief,
would weigh against her when she confronted God after her death. "I
also began to imagine the people I would be killing, whether they would
be women and children, families sitting down at a cafe. I became a bit
disillusioned, because I had been told to blow myself up in any event,"
she said. "This meant to me that what was important for them was to
succeed in perpetrating an attack, whether there were casualties or
not, and then they would be able to pat themselves on the back. I felt
like they were playing a game with the blood of the martyrs." Instead
of obeying instructions, she decided to visit the home of an aunt in
Tulkarm, pretending that it was a normal visit even though she had
basically run away from home. Hamamreh said that the intifada and the
wave of terror attacks and suicide bombings has not benefitted the
Palestinian people in any way. "...You are killing our people and we
are killing yours," she said. "Now I believe that it is the role of
women to raise families, to have children, and that the real jihad for
men and women is to believe wholeheartedly and follow the path of
Islam," she said. She stressed that she had no personal fear and that
for her to be shot and killed was not something that frightened her.
She only fears God. When she was asked how she would react when she met
members of her family, she suddenly broke down and started crying. "I
would ask their forgiveness for having gone away and for having caused
them so much concern, because parents do not raise their children to
seek death. I would hope they would forgive me as parents do, although
I would prefer not to see them now because I wouldn't really know what
to say." [Source: David Rudge, for The Jerusalem Post]

A NEW ROUND OF
ANGER AND HUMILIATION: ISLAM AFTER 9/11
By Daniel Pipes
Edited by Wladyslaw Pleszczynski
Our Brave New World: Essays on the Impact of September 11
2002
An important historical and realistic look at the Islamic view of the
world
and their plans in it. Worthy of reading.

June, 2002:

Palestinian children have tossed away their Pokemon
necklaces for the new rage - martyr necklaces. "I used to have plenty
of Pok mons - my school bag was half full of them," Saleh Attiti, 14,
told the paper. "I threw them all away. They're not important now. The
pictures of martyrs are important. They're our idols." "These children
are convinced that martyrdom is a holy thing, something worthy of the
ultimate respect," Munir Jabal, head of a Balata teachers association,
said in an interview "They worship these pictures. I think it will lead
them in the future to go out and do the same thing." In Balata, the
most desired necklaces have pictures of Mahmoud Attiti, Raed Karmi, and
Yasser Badawi, members assassinated by the IDF during the conflict. The
hottest item is a pendant of Jihad Attiti, the 18-year-old who became
the camp's first suicide bomber two weeks ago by blowing himself up and
killing two Israelis - an 18-month-old baby and her grandmother - in
Petah Tikva. Added Saleh, a nephew of bomber Attiti: "We love them and
we want to be like them."

June 16, 2002:
American citizen, Pat Roush's daughters were kidnapped 16 years ago by
her estranged husband
and taken to his country, Saudi Arabia, where they remain held hostage.
The father married one daughter
off to his cousin, and plans are to marry off the younger daughter -
against their will. The daughers have tried to leave
Saudi Arabia, but because they are their father's and husband's
property, they cannot leave the country
without their permission. Doesn't matter that they are U.S. citizens
who don't want to be there.
As we all know, women have almost no rights in Saudi Arabia.

Three mothers of
kidnapped offspring testified at a House committee hearing June 12,
2002, telling members how their children were abducted illegally by
their former husbands and forced to live in the Middle Eastern kingdom.
Members of the House Committee on Government Reform, agreeing that the
government should take more action on behalf of kidnapped Americans,
promised to write a letter to President Bush asking for his personal
involvement in the international kidnappings. Until now, no one has
helped them. In her statement to the committee, Roush said: "Saudi
Arabia has violated my human rights and the human rights and
constitutional rights afforded to my daughters as American citizens.
The U.S. State Department is an accessory and active conspirator in the
denial of these rights." Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., chairman of the
committee, asked Roush if the State Department currently had a plan to
bring her daughters back to the U.S. "The State Department never had a
plan to get my daughters out of Saudi Arabia." Roush attempted to
enlist help from Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer,
without success. She doesn't understand why George W. and Laura Bush
care so much about the rights of Afghan women,
but not about the rights of American women. If you'd like to join the
support group for Pat Roush, please
go to this
page.

July 4, 2002:
MUZAFFARGARH, Pakistan - Police continue to search for four men accused
in the gang rape of an 18-year-old girl as a tribal punishment believe
they have fled their village to evade authorities. As outrage at the
teen-ager's rape grew, the government handed her a check for 500,000
rupees (dlrs 8,000) as compensation and said a new school would be
built in her honor. The gang rape took place June 22 in Meerwala
village in southern Punjab province. Police said a tribal council
ordered the rape as punishment for the victim's family after her
11-year-old brother was seen walking unchaperoned with a girl from a
tribe considered higher-caste. The victim's family were from the Gujar
tribe, the other tribe were Mastoi. Geeeez!

July 8, 2002:
There has been a wave of husband killings in Iran. CNN
has an article
on this serious development. Women feel their own way out of an
undesirable marriage is to
murder their husbands, either by themselves or with a hired killer.
Women are fed up with being
abused, having few legal rights, living in poverty, lacking healthy
entertainment, complete inequality, men having many wives and legal
prostitution with temporary wives, horrible divorce laws,
and more. They know they will face the death penalty for killing their
husbands - but that doesn't
matter to them. Men, look out, treat women much better. In the last
year divorce has gone through as 12% increase, and marriages are down
4.5 % in Iran.

July 19, 2002:
Reports are surfacing about Sudanese adolescent boys and girls being
gang raped and held as slaves
by Arabs. These Sudanese youngsters are mostly Christian who refuse to
convert to Islam and
are beaten and murdered for not converting. Some Muslims are even
speaking out against these atrocities. This situation largely has to do
with politics and whose controlling the region.
The International Criminal Tribunal needs to convict the Sudan
government for their crimes against the black Africans of southern
Sudan, and more media coverage and other governments need to
investigate this horror and put and end to it.

July 26, 2002:
Four military wives were murdered by their husbands who served at Fort
Bragg, in the U.S.
The husbands served in Afghanistan prior to killing their wives. Also,
two young girls in
the U.S. were raped and murdered within a week. In So. Africa a man was
convicted
of raping a 9 month old baby, requiring the baby to have reconstructive
surgery
to repair her genitals and internal organs! What is wrong with some men
to do these
horrible things to infants, to girls, women?

August 19, 2002:
A Nigerian Islamic court ruled that a young woman must face death by
stoning according to Muslim law for having a child outside marriage.
"If one can be sentenced to death for fornication then it makes
nonsense of our democracy," said Innocent Chukwuma of the Centre for
Law Enforcement Education, a Lagos-based legal rights pressure group.
"The majority of Nigerians should be sentenced to death by such a
ruling." How kind of the judge to allow her death sentence to be
postponed until she has weaned her 8 month old daughter, which may be
another two years, so the girl can grow up without a mother. There will
be an appeal. The woman believes
God will vindicate her. Yeah, but what about the Muslim men who will
still decide her fate, those who are so disconnected from godliness?

September 2, 2002:
A court in Pakistan sentenced six men to death for the gang rape (in
front of her father) and public humiliation of a woman whose brother
was accused of having relations with a higher-caste woman. After the
woman's brother was accused of having relations with a higher-caste
woman, (how is this such a freaking crime?) members of her family
called a tribal council to determine proper punishment. That punishment
was for the four men to gang rape the man's sister. To add insult to
injury, the families of those six men sentenced vowed revenge against
the woman's family! This is an insult to humanity. I can't believe in
these times such primitive and stupid ideas persist. A defense lawyer
for one of the accused had the audacity to argue during the trial that
the rape charge against his client was invalid because Bibi was
technically married to him at the time - as if that makes rape okay.

Arafat's henchmen
murdered a mother of seven because she was accused of conspiring with
Israelis. We don't know if there's any truth to this, nor do we know if
she was murdered because she simply wanted peace with Israel, or food
for her family. And now it seems that yet another woman was murdered by
the PA using the same lame excuse. It's all about control through fear
to keep war and hatred strong, and to keep women down.

September 4, 2002:
Women claim a victory at U.N. Summit:
The more than 100 assembled heads of state or government are first
expected to adopt a new plan, which is designed to bring clean water,
sanitation and energy to the poor while protecting the environment and
preventing further extinction of species.
The issue of women's reproductive rights triggered protests both inside
and outside the convention center. "Women's rights are human rights,"
Nkosazana Zuma, South Africa's foreign minister, said Tuesday. "Health
is a human right." Under Taliban rule in Afghanistan, she said, "women
couldn't go to the hospital, because women were not allowed to be
doctors and women patients were not allowed to be examined by male
doctors. Without such an expression of human rights, some countries
could hide behind their laws and local customs to justify everything
from genital excision to denying women health care, she and U.N.
officials said. Advocates for women complained that the plan, at more
than 70 pages, retreated from standard language that has been carefully
crafted in other United Nations declarations to balance the interests
of religious conservatives with the rights of women to control their
health care and future. Brava!

September 7, 2002:
Miss France, Sylvie Tellier, said she will boycott the Miss World
pageant in Nigeria in protest at a death by stoning sentence given to a
woman there for having sex, and a baby, outside of marriage. Miss
France said, "We have to revolt against it" in asking other beauty
queens to join her boycott.

December 20, 2002:
(took a break from adding more up-dates until today)
PARAOTT, Indian-controlled Jammu: Suspected militants entered a home
and brutally killed three young women (slitting the throats of two of
them and shot the third), just days after posters ordered females to
wear a veil. While the motive of the attack is still unclear, one
police official told Reuters news agency it could be related to an
order for women not to step outside their homes without a veil. Do you
think they allow women to kill men for what they wear, or don't wear,
in public? Would that be okay? Just let people kill someone who dresses
differently? Who is condemning this? Who is adding such groups to
terrorist/murdering organizations and the nations that harbor them?

There is
no exercise better for the heart
than reaching down and lifting people up.